A History of Central Eastern Europe

SÁTORALJAÚJHELY became the
capital.
Whole villages sprung up or were filled with ethnic Germans. The industrial labor was
notoriously horrific, backbreaking
work and the
opportunity to farm
presented an attractive
alternative to hours spent
in the dark, dangerous
mines.
The first decade of the
18 th century brought the
plague to the ZEMPLÉN
region with devastating
effects. Many towns
reported that ¾ or more
of the houses stood
empty & abandoned. The
area’s population
rebounded after the
Ottoman occupiers left
and the Slovak and
Ruthenian farmers
returned who brought
their Greek Catholic
religion with them.
In researching our ancestors from
this area, I found the progenitors of
the SMITH line to be identified with
the following spellings: SMID,
SCHMID, SMIDT and SCHMIDT. The
female progenitors include the
surnames KLEIN, UNTENER and
MARCZI. One fact immediately
becomes obvious – these are
Germanic surnames, not Slovak or
Magyar/Hungarian.
The local people were quite adept at agrarian pursuits with wine production highly
developed in the area as was the raising of livestock. However their industrial
productivity was not so great as to be able to exploit the natural resources available. In
contrast, the people of what would become Germany proper were heavily oriented
towards industrial activities. The area needed quarries, foundries and mills, the people
needed to run them as well as a skilled labor force. Under the HAPSBURG EMPRESS
MARIA THERESE a large-scale transmigration occurred from lands in southwest Germany
which had been struggling under an economic recession, to northeast Hungary to meet
this need.
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